


Everybody Comes To Quark's

by Selena



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-27
Updated: 2006-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-22 13:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10698438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selena/pseuds/Selena
Summary: Essay about the character Quark fromStar Trek: Deep Space Nine.





	Everybody Comes To Quark's

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Judith Proctor (Watervole)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watervole/gifts).



> **Spoiler:** For the entire show.
> 
> **Thanks to:** [](http://artaxastra.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://artaxastra.livejournal.com/)**artaxastra** for beta-reading.
> 
>  
> 
> **Author's Note:** This essay was originally posted in 2006 in the lj community Idol_Reflection. Reposted here now due to the latest lj legal moves.

He’s short, ugly, unabashedly sexist, conservative or a reactionary depending on your definition, a capitalist exploiter of the first order, not disinclined to sell our heroes out on occasion and definitely believing in discretion as the better part of valour: Quark, my favourite character on the Star Trek spin-off _Deep Space Nine_. ****

**I. The Ferengi**

Armin Shimerman, who plays Quark on DS9, also played the very first Ferengi sighted in the Star Trek universe, in one of the earliest _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ episodes, and confessed to feeling somewhat guilty about it in interviews. Mind you, it’s hard to see what he could have done, given the script. The Ferengi were originally intended as a new antagonist race, replacing the Klingons, who had been, via Worf, integrated as friends in the Star Trek universe. The intention was soon discarded, given the way the idea was realized. You could hardly ask for worse caricatures. They looked like small trolls, they embodied the evils of capitalism but weren’t presented as actually smart traders, easily outfoxed by the (non-money-using) Federation at every turn, then there was their boo-hiss sexist attitude towards women, and they weren’t even shown as good fighters as the Klingons had been back in TOS times. Subsequently, the Ferengi were only used as comic relief in TNG episodes such as “Menage a Troi”, though later seasons tried to experiment a bit by adding a sympathetic Ferengi scientist in a Beverly-Crusher-centric episode.

However, it was left to DS9 to do for the Ferengi what TNG had done for the Klingons – take the original black and white premise and evolve it into something credible, three-dimensional, and actually sympathetic. Making one of the regulars of the new spin-off a Ferengi when DS9 got off the ground was a start; adding other recurring Ferengi characters – his brother, his nephew, the Nagus, his nemesis Brunt, his mother – who were all different from each other was an important part. But it was mainly the writing and acting for Quark himself that pulled off the trick. By the time DS9 ended, we knew all about Ferengi institutions, marriage and burial customs, games, could quote their Rules of Acquisition, had seen Ferenginar more often than any other alien planet save Bajor, and were faced with the fact that between Quark’s various romances and Rom’s marriage, the Ferengi were clearly doing far better in the sexual department than most of the other characters. The times, they were indeed changing. ****

**II. Business**

In any of the other ST shows, the Ferengi regular would have been like his brother Rom or his nephew Nog, both characters who come to admire and adopt human/Federation values. This is a tried and true premise: the Alien who starts out very different but learns from Our Heroes and becomes more and more like us. DS9, however, chose a different route. Quark evolves throughout the show, but he resolutely stays a Ferengi (and proud of it). (Mind you, this allowed Ira Behr, who is responsible for most of the Ferengi-centric episodes, to comment that the Ferengi to him were the unidealized humans of today whereas the Federation personnel were the idealized humans of the future, but thankfully, nobody told Quark that.) He also remains a businessman; it’s a part of his character as important to him as the bar he owns, and at one point, he nearly dies in order to continue as a businessman. Speaking of the bar – the last barkeeper a Star Trek watcher would have been familiar with when DS9 started would have been the wise and enigmatic Guinan of TNG fame. Quark couldn’t be more unlike her if he tried. First of all, he’s in the process of leaving the station when we meet him, and has to be blackmailed by Sisko into staying. Secondly, he really isn’t into dispensing wise counsil; a pep talk by Quark usually ends in an attempt at a scam, unless you’re Odo or Dax. As for conversations, the one with Garak in the season 4 opener, _The Way of the Warrior_ , neatly illustrates the way the writers often use Quark in the way medieval courts used their jesters.

Quark _(re: root beer)_ : It’s so bubbly and cloying and happy.  
Garak _(sympathizing)_ : Just like the Federation.  
Quark: But you know what’s really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you start to like it.

To heroic characters like Kira or Sisko, Quark’s greed for profit and various attempts to gain it are shady and/or a sign of his dishonesty. Actually, Quark’s business ethics are quite firm; they’re just not those of the Federation. He believes in the Rules of Acquisition he constantly quotes, and sees the fact that he at times places other things ahead of profit – usually a family member and/or a pretty woman, sometimes an opportunity to gain the respect of non-Ferengi – as a flaw on his part. Successful barkeeper though he is, Quark never quite makes enough profit by his other enterprises to do what he always dreams of doing, leave the station and buy his own moon. In a not so coincidental parallel, for all his constant assurances of Ferengi patriotism, he usually is miserable when on his homeworld. As one of his favourite Rules says – “home is where the heart is, but the stars are made of latinum”. ****

**III. Romance**

DS9 tried earlier on to give the best-looking male cast member, Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) the Kirk role of getting the girls of the week, which didn’t have very convincing results, whereupon the show concentrated on his relationships with the enigmatic Cardassian Garak and Chief Miles O’Brien instead. Rather surprisingly, the male regular who ended up with quite a lot of girls of the week stories, from the second season onwards, was Quark. Even better, the girls, or rather women in question were used for character exploration and made it quite clear Quark was a hidden romantic, and indeed the writers plundered some very popular romances for the relevant episodes, among them _Yentl_ , _Cyrano de Bergerac_ and _Casablanca_ , all with Quark as the unlikely male hero. Here are some prominent examples:

There was Pel, the Ferengi female who disguised herself as a male in order to earn profit. In a quintessential Quark display of the contradictory elements in his nature, he was unable to overlook that once he found out. (Pel suggests going to the Gamma Quadrant together, where no one would care about Ferengi rules for women; “I’d care,” says Quark.) At the same time, he gave up all his earnings and profits from the episode’s big deal to protect her from the Grand Nagus, the Ferengi ruler, and to allow her that independent life away from Ferenginar she craved.

Next, we meet Natima, a Cardassian journalist and dissident, who, we learn, had a romance with Quark in the days of the Cardassian occupation. In _Profit and Loss_ , the working title of which was _Everybody comes to Quark’s_ , an even more obvious tip-off to _Casablanca_ as the story is anyway, she returns to the station, which allows for an ironic and affectionate rendition of that most beloved of WW II romances, with Quark as Rick, aka Humphrey Bogart, facing armed and wily Cardassians and humiliating himself in front of security chief Odo in order to rescue his beloved, and in the end wandering off with Garak into the proverbial fade-out.

And then there is Grilka the Klingon. A Klingon/Ferengi culture clash was priceless comedy material, but the episode in question, “House of Quark”, also showcased Quark using his business sense and his own brand of bravery to save the day. He figures out the trouble Grilka is in precisely because he knows more about finances than about battles. When faced with a ridiculously hopeless situation – a Klingon warrior who challenged him to a duel – his first instinct is to run. It’s the knowledge that Grilka will suffer the consequences that makes him change his mind, but Quark being Quark, a realist, and this being DS9, he doesn’t suddenly aquire fighting skills. Instead, he saves himself and Grilka by telling the warrior in question that to go up against him is no more or less than an execution, kneels down and tells the guy to get on with it without the niceties and cosmetics of calling this an honorable duel. Shaming Klingon machismo saves the day.

The most enduring of Quark’s romances, however, never becomes one but remains a friendship. Jadzia Dax, the Trill science officer, is the first Starfleet member we see socializing with the Ferengi, not by frequenting Quark’s bar, which everyone does, but by participating in the Ferengi game Tongo. In episodes such as _Playing God_ or _Rules of Acquisition_ , we see other characteres such as the Trill initiate Arjun or Kira scandalized and disgusted respectively by Dax’ enthusiasm for hanging out with Ferengi in general and Quark in particular, and Dax being sublimely indifferent to this. Meanwhile, Quark still switches between addressing her as “Lieutenant” and “Dax”; he hits on her every now and then but mostly treats her as a buddy, which she reciprocates. For all her amusement and fondness for Quark, however, Dax _is_ a Starfleet officer; two seasons later, at a point where she has become “Jadzia” to him, she withdraws her friendship when he crosses a line he had not before by trying to escape his current financial dilemma through joining his cousin in the weapons of mass destruction business. Dax functions as Quark’s conscience in the episode in question, _Business as Usual_ , and at one point, when he believes his effort to quit said business will result in his death, she is the last person he attempts to speak to and leaves his possessions with. Hints that Quark might have fallen in love with Jadzia Dax become stronger towards the end of season 5, as her romance with the Klingon Worf intensifies; by season 6, when she is married, he more or less admits it towards Odo, who has gone through a similar experience with Kira before, something only Quark realized at the time. Jadzia’s death in the season 6 finale results in her widower, Worf, going on a suicidal mission to help her soul towards Sto-vo-kor (the Klingon version of Valhalla). He’s joined not just by Julian Bashir, who had a crush on Dax from the day he met her, but by Quark, who counters Worf’s disbelief and indignation at his appearance by stating: “I loved Jadzia as much as anyone in this room.” (Worf later admits that he was feeling jealous towards both Bashir and Quark because of the affection Dax had for them.) ****

**IV. Family**

Star Trek in its various incarnations featured family relationships before, but by and large, they were relegated to one or two guest appearances and followed the pattern of “estranged family member shows up, quarrells with regular, regular and family member reconcile”. (Riker and his father, Troi and her mother, Picard and his brother and of course Kirk and his newly discovered son in _Wrath of Khan_ all being cases in point; it’s interesting that the one family relationship which could have been closely investigated due to both characters being regulars for several years on the show, i.e. the one between Beverly and Wesley Crusher, hardly got any attention from the writers at all.) DS9, perhaps due to being set on a station instead of a space station, went a different path, though they also had this type of episodes (as with Odo and his “father”, the Bajoran scientist Dr. Mora, or Bashir’s parents). The (harmonious, which is unusual not just for Trek but for tv) relationship between Benjamin and Jake Sisko is important to both their characters throughout the show; O’Brien is a quintessential family man. So, to his chargrin, is Quark.

Quark gets introduced as having a brother and a nephew in the show’s pilot – indeed, Nog stealing something is how Sisko is able to blackmail Quark into staying. Nog’s friendship with Jake becomes an important element throughout the show (and the first occasion to confront Sisko with the fact that he can be prejudiced), and Nog’s development from juvenile delinquent (as far as Starfleet is concerned) to model Starfleet officer (the first Ferengi to serve in Starfleet) is one of the big surprises DS9 has in store. As far as the relationship with his uncle Quark is concerned, there is resentment on both sides – Nog resents the way Quark dominates Nog’s father Rom and feels embarassed by Quark’s unheroic and nagging behaviour when the two of them are in company with other humans (such as in the s2 finale, _The Jem’Hadar_ , or the s7 episode _The Siege at AR-558_ , though it’s noticable Nog isn’t at all embarassed for Quark using Ferengi tactics when no humans are around, such as in _The Magnificent Ferengi_ ), while Quark resents Nog going Starfleet – but also loyalty and affection. _The Siege at AR-558_ ends with Nog losing his leg and Quark keeping watch over him and taking care of him while Jem’hadar shoot left and right.

By far the most important family member to Quark, the one he has the most on-screen interaction and the most complex relationship with is his brother Rom. Rom starts as something of a one-note joke, being presented as a bumbling idiot “who couldn’t fix a straw” (according to Odo, though given Rom’s later characterisation, this line makes no sense at all; one of the few serious continuity glitches), is only interested in inheriting the bar from his brother and in the first season episode _The Nagus_ even conspires to get Quark killed in order to achieve this. Starting with season 2, however, Rom’s characterisation started to change; we saw hints of technical competence as well as genuine affection (in _Rules of Acquisition_ , Rom is jealous because Pel is “stealing” his brother from him). It’s not until season 3, however, that Rom and his relationship with Quark is characterized in the way most DS9 watchers remember it. From season 3 onwards, Rom is a sweet-natured technological genius whose hope to get the bar one day is more or less conditioned into him by Ferengi society, and is something he overcomes. He’s bumbling because Quark frequently calls him an idiot, not because he actually is. He does let himself be bossed around by Quark (until season 4) and feels oppressed by it, but at the end of s3’s _House of Quark_ , makes the first of many gestures that showcase his kind and loving nature when he asks Quark to recount again the story of his showdown with the Klingon D’Gor, Quark replies the story has lost any financial value, as all the bar’s patrons know it already and don’t want to hear it again, and Rom says that _he’_ d like to hear it again.

For his part, Quark, following the rules of acquisition as he does, believes in the exploitation of family members and Rom most of all. Given that their mother Ishka openly prefers Rom, there might be some acting out of fraternal jealousy though the show never emphasizes this aspect very much. Mostly, Quark comes across as abrasive, possessive and protective, though not always all at the same time, when it comes to interaction with his brother. In the s4 episode _Bar Association_ when Rom finally, after organizing a strike, ends up independent and with a job outside of Quark’s bar (as part of the station’s technological crew), Quark starts out at his exploitative worst but ends up getting beaten up by a hired thug and gives in to the striker’s demands because he doesn’t want Rom to go through the same experience. The quintessential scene between the brothers probably occurs in the season 5 finale, _Call To Arms_ , when Rom, instead of leaving the station with his Bajoran wife Leeta, chooses to stay, something that Quark angrily berates him for. Rom returns that Quark stays as well, Quark counters that he’s looking after the bar, and Rom says he’s looking after Quark. Whereupon Quark tells him he’s an idiot and kisses him on the head.

Quark’s relationship with his mother Ishka is a Freudian’s delight, as Ishka clearly resembles the independent, argumentative women Quark tends to fall for, but in her greed for profit and clear domination of everyone around her resembles himself even more. Not surprisingly, the two of them can barely stand being in the same room with each other. In a rare peaceful moment, Ishka admits that the resemblance between them (whereas Rom takes after her husband, the late, financially none too succesful Keldar) is part of the problem. Their frequent arguments only cease when a third party, such as FCA Liquidator Brunt, threatens the family, if then.

Ishka ends up in a romantic relationship with the Grand Nagus Zek, the head of the Ferengi Alliance, Quark’s idol and none too secret father figure. However, Quark’s relationship with Zek is very one sided. We see Quark going to considerable lengths for Zek at various points of the show – he faces the Prophets (aka the wormhole aliens revered as gods by the Bajorans) for him, foils an intrigue of Brunt’s, and in the last season, goes to the mirror universe to save him – whereas Zek, the occasional approving word for a business deal aside, never shows any kind of concern for Quark, neither in deed or verbally. “He doesn’t have to,” Quark declares at one point when Rom points this out to him, “he’s the Nagus”, but when the show ends with Zek, following Ishka’s prompts, appointing Rom as his successor, the rejection Quark feels is obvious. ****

****

 

**V. Friends and Enemies**

Quark’s oldest aquaintance on the station, frequent nemesis and occasional confidant, security chief Odo, met him first during the first Cardassian occupation, after being appointed by Gul Dukat to investigate a murder. After the Federation takes over the station, Odo frequently foils Quark’s more dubious schemes but somehow never manages to prove some truly serious crime. As early as season 2, Quark, in the course of trying to free his Cardassian lover Natima Lang, crosses an unspoken line by listing “do it for me, for all the years we’ve known each other” as one of the reasons why Odo should help him. (Odo is incensed but a minute later gives in, saying he does it for justice’s sake and certainly not for Quark.) Not surprisingly, Quark is the only one on the station to notice Odo’s feelings for Kira have turned into love, and in the season 4 episode _Crossfire_ gives Odo some unsentimental but good advice of how to deal with it. (He also keeps quiet about this, never mentioning it to anyone.) Odo, as mentioned earlier later returns the favour when it comes to Quark and Dax.

_Little Green Men_ , probably the most delightful time travel episode DS9 produced, in which Quark, Nog and Rom end up being revealed as the Roswell aliens, also includes a moment in which Quark, asked by a guest character – when Odo shapeshifts and saves everyone’s hide – who this is, replies, sarcastic but at the same time clearly not joking: “My hero.” He respects Odo, and Odo, though he would rather die than admit it, returns the sentiment. When he leaves the station in the series finale, intending not to let anyone but Kira know of his departure, Quark notices and comes after him nonetheless. Quark’s last line, after Odo refuses to say goodbye to him, sums up their relationship. “That man loves me. It’s written all over his back.”

Quark and Benjamin Sisko, the station’s commander, have a respectful if distant relationship. Sisko clearly sees Quark’s usefulness in terms of keeping DS9 populated and interacts enough with him to pick up some rules of acquisition, but as opposed to Dax, there is no question of actual friendship here. However, the writers of the show occasionally use encounters between the two to confront Sisko – and the viewer – with subconscious prejudices, most memorably in the episode _The Jem’hadar_ , in a scene where Quark first startles Sisko and then renders him speechless by challenging him with the accusation that the human attitude towards the Ferengi in general, and Sisko’s attitude towards Quark in particular, is somewhat racist. Mind you, his culminating argument, which goes along the lines of “you don’t like us because we remind you of how you used to be. Well, I’ll tell you something – we’re not how you used to be. We’re better. We don’t have slavery, or concentration camps” – is flawed if you look at the status of female Ferengi throughout most of the show, which is little better than slavery. (Though there is nothing in the show’s canon to indicate that Quark is wrong about the Ferengi never having practiced genocide.) But going by Sisko’s reaction – he doesn’t offer a counter argument other than “that’s ridiculous”, and then silence – Quark is on to something. At the very least, Sisko is aware of feeling superior to the Ferengi; when he’s forced to bribe Quark in the episode _In the Pale Moonlight_ , he takes Quark’s approving words as one more indication of how low he’s fallen. All in all, Sisko’s attitude toward’s Quark is best summed up by his explanation to Worf in _Indiscretion_ : things aren’t black and white, he says, and Quark _is_ shades of grey.

The most relentless enemy Quark has isn’t Odo, despite their ongoing cop-and-crook-games, but a recurring character who first shows up in the s4 episode _Bar Association_ and presents himself then, and ever after, with the words “Brunt, FCA”. FCA standing for Ferengi Commerce Authority. Brunt, played by Jeffrey Combs, has the original hate/hate relationship with Quark, and schemes to ruin him in a number of episodes, most successfully in _Body Parts_ , where he creates a situation where Quark has either to defy Ferengi law or to die, which results in Quark losing his business licence. Outscheming Brunt is immensely satisfying to Quark; in the last episode Brunt shows up, Quark takes not a little pleasure in his toadying (as Brunt mistakenly believes at the time Quark will become the next Nagus). He appears, however, somewhat baffled by the intensity of Brunt’s hate (which is indeed lethal). It’s worth noting that for all his quick temper and exploitativeness, Quark never hates anyone in the course of seven seasons enough to wish them dead, and indeed kills only on two occasions in said seven years (once in the course of breaking his brother Rom out of jail, and once to protect the unconscious Nog); both times, he comes across thrown and anything but triumphant.

****

 

“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Quark says in the DS9 series finale, and these are the last words ever spoken on the show. It’s fitting that they’re spoken by the regular who performs a similar function to the fools in classic drama; comic relief, to be sure, but also insight and occasions of deep pathos. Because his natural reaction to danger is to turn tail and run away, his moments of physical bravery were all the more effective; in a universe that gets increasingly grim as the Dominion war raged, he never stops seeing negotations and bribery as a way out (and incidentally is proven right in a way, as what prevents the Female Founder from ordering the Jem’Hadar to continue fighting is Odo linking with her and promising to return to their people). He keeps falling in love with women who were the opposite of what his natural conservatism tells him to treasure, is the rebel in a family of progressives precisely because he’s the Tory, and is quick-witted enough to win arguments with representatives of just about every race in two quadrants if he tries hard enough, from Cardassians through Vulcans to the Prophets themselves. In short, he’s a delightful paradox, and like Jadzia Dax tells Pel: “I don’t care what everybody else says, I love him.”


End file.
